Quotes About Voltaire

#1. The nose has been formed to bear spectacles - thus we have spectacles.

Voltaire

#2. It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music?

Voltaire

#3. The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

Voltaire

#4. Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself.

Voltaire

#5. Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice.

Voltaire

#6. It is difficult to free people from the chains they revere.

Voltaire

#7. The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything.

Voltaire

#8. It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.

Voltaire

#9. The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

Voltaire

#10. This thought has met with the fate of many other useful projects, of being applauded and neglected.

Voltaire

#11. There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

Bertrand Russell

#12. The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs.

Voltaire

#13. The opinion of all lawyers, the unanimous cry of the nation, and the good of the state, are in themselves a law.

Voltaire

#14. Those who are absent, by its means become present: correspondence is the consolation of life. - VOLTAIRE, Philosophical Dictionary

Colin Dexter

#15. The way to become boring is to say everything.

Voltaire

#16. We are at the end of all our troubles, and at the beginning of happiness

Voltaire

#17. A small number of choice books are sufficient.

Voltaire

#18. You will notice that in all disputes between Christians since the birth of the Church, Rome has always favored the doctrine which most completely subjugated the human mind and annihilated reason.

Voltaire

#19. The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

Voltaire

#20. Did you hear that
did you have any choice about whether to hear it

Voltaire

#21. A true god surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough ... [or inspired] books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror.

Voltaire

#22. To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.

Voltaire

#23. The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.

Voltaire

#24. Beautiful maiden," answered Candide, "when a man is in love, is jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he becomes lost to all reflection.

Voltaire

#25. It is best one should quote what one doesn't understand at all in the language one knows the least

Voltaire

#26. History in general is a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times.

Voltaire

#27. Consequently they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing, they should have said all is for the best.

Voltaire

#28. The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted.

Voltaire

#29. There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

Voltaire

#30. Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

Voltaire

#31. The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

Voltaire

#32. Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

Voltaire

#33. The fate of a nation has often depended upon the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.

Voltaire

#34. Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons.

Voltaire

#35. Language is a very difficult thing to put into words.

Voltaire

#36. To make a vow for life is to make oneself a slave.

Voltaire

#37. There is only one morality, as there is only one geometry.

Voltaire

#38. I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.

Voltaire

#39. Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

Voltaire

#40. Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

Voltaire

#41. If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other's throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace

Voltaire

#42. To enjoy life we must touch much of it lightly.

Voltaire

#43. Needless to say since Christ's expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die.

Voltaire

#44. For can anything be sillier than to insist on carrying a burden one would continually much rather throw to the ground?

Voltaire

#45. Use, do not abuse ... neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

Voltaire

#46. I am bored in France because everyone resembles Voltaire.

Charles Baudelaire

#47. The Jews are of all peoples the grosses, the most ferocious, the most fanatical, and the most absurd.

Voltaire

#48. It must also be noted that until the present time this malady, like religious controversy, has been wholly confined to the continent of Europe.

Voltaire

#49. The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him

Voltaire

#50. Alas ... I too have known love, that ruler of hearts, that soul of our soul: it's never brought me anything except one kiss and twenty kicks in the rump. How could such a beautiful cause produce such an abominable effect on you?

Voltaire

#51. Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.

Voltaire

#52. Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said.

Voltaire

#53. (about Voltaire)...he was generally unbedeviled by any foolish consistency.

Thomas Mallon

#54. The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

Voltaire

#55. this is how men treat one another.

Voltaire

#56. Tell her stories to alleviate her inquietude; for stories always amuse the ladies, and it is only by interesting them that one can succeed in the world. Mambres

Voltaire

#57. Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.

Voltaire

#58. if a philosopher wishes to be useful to human society, he must announce a God.

Voltaire

#59. My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue,

Voltaire

#60. History is the lie commonly agreed upon.

Voltaire

#61. An admiral should be put to death now and then to encourage the others.

Voltaire

#62. And to every man has been assigned a good and an evil angel; one assisting him and the other annoying him, from his cradle to his coffin.

Voltaire

#63. The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.

Voltaire

#64. By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.

Voltaire

#65. Sect and error are synonymous.

Voltaire

#66. Indolence is sweet, and its consequence bitter.

Voltaire

#67. Let us confess it: evil strides the world.

Voltaire

#68. He's over your head! He was, but naturally I'd flung myself into the Sea of Voltaire anyway and emerged with nothing more than several aphorisms.

Sue Monk Kidd

#69. It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.

Voltaire

#70. Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

Voltaire

#71. Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.

Voltaire

#72. My soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body is its frame

Voltaire

#73. Despite hating mobs and technically being a nobleman, Napoleon welcomed the Revolution. At least in its early stages it accorded well with the Enlightenment ideals he had ingested from his reading of Rousseau and Voltaire.

Andrew Roberts

#74. The further I go, the more I am confirmed in the idea that systems of metaphysics are for philosophers are what novels are for women.

Voltaire

#75. Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he,'and you'll fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief.

Voltaire

#76. They are mad men (Jews), but you should not burn them for that.

Voltaire

#77. Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best.

Voltaire

#78. The best is the enemy of good.

Voltaire

#79. The law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbour, and

Voltaire

#80. Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

Voltaire

#81. Society therefore is an ancient as the world.

Voltaire

#82. Twenty-volume folios will never make a revolution. It's the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared.

Voltaire

#83. It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Voltaire

#84. The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

Voltaire

#85. Let us leave every man at liberty to seek into him and to lose himself in his ideas.

Voltaire

#86. I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

Voltaire

#87. Nothing is more annoying than to be obscurely hanged.

Voltaire

#88. I've had some experience of this love, this love that rules our hearts, which is the soul of our souls; all it got me was a kiss and twenty kicks in the ass. How could so beautiful a cause have produced in you such an abominable effect?

Voltaire

#89. This is no time to be making new enemies.

Voltaire

#90. A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.

Voltaire

#91. Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.

Voltaire

#92. As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites.

Voltaire

#93. Like Rousseau, whom he resembles even more than he resembles Voltaire , Shaw never gave a social form to his assertiveness, never desired to arrive and to assimilate himself, or wield authority as of right.

Jacques Barzun

#94. We cannot wish for that we know not.

Voltaire

#95. Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote.

Voltaire

#96. The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart.

Voltaire

#97. To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them.

Voltaire

#98. Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.

Voltaire

#99. Do transports of rage make a religion any truer? A man shot in a battle does not lose his temper, but argue with a theologian and he becomes implacable.

Voltaire

#100. The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault.

Voltaire